


you make decisions and have to live with the consequences

by Ingu



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 01:06:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/972515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ingu/pseuds/Ingu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times someone from the Shatterdome met the Crossroads Demon.</p><p>Alternately, five times someone from the Shatterdome had one chance to make their most important wish come true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you make decisions and have to live with the consequences

**Author's Note:**

> A short fill for a Pacific Rim kink meme prompt which [requested](http://pacificrimkink.livejournal.com/350.html?thread=829278#t829278) a Crossroad Demons AU, cleaned-up and reposted (and deanoning) here.
> 
> For those who do not know, the Crossroads Demon has the power to grant any wish in exchange for your soul. After ten years, hell-hounds will arrive to collect, and drag your soul off to spend eternity in hell.
> 
> Massive thanks to [ladylapislazuli](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ladylapislazuli) for beta-ing this fic.

The boy is young, with scruffy ginger hair and surprisingly beautiful green eyes. 

 

He is barely a teenager, but he has a fire and determination that tells her with one glance whatever deal offered today is already as good as sealed. 

 

Though his breathing is ragged, his face does not betray any of the terror she can sense within him. She finds herself impressed, if not a little endeared to this little creature before her.

 

“What is your wish, my dear?” she smiles indulgingly, nothing but warmth and motherly affection. It stirs something within the child’s eyes and she knows this is just another urchin, stray and longing for the love of a mother lost to the otherworldly monsters they call Kaiju. Even before he opens his mouth, she knows what the wish will be.

 

The boy speaks with an Australian lilt, and the words are not what she expects. 

 

“I want to be good enough. I want to be a Jaeger pilot.” 

 

-

 

The little girl stares up at her with horror. Before either of them can speak, a man’s voice rings out from afar.

 

“Mako!”

 

Trembling, the girl steps back, and turns towards the voice.

 

“Mako, who are you talking to?”

 

The girl casts one final glance at her and flees, black hair flying in the wind. 

 

She sighs, rolls her eyes, and goes hunting for another vulnerable soul. 

 

-

 

“I want to be indestructible.”

 

She has to say, this is not a wish she gets often.

 

This is not a wish she has ever gotten at all, at least not in such a straightforward manner.

 

“So you want a guarantee for your continued existence, if only for ten years?”

 

“That’s right, look, I’m getting old, and the world is coming to an end, so if we’re all going to die sooner or later, I’d rather it not be sooner. You get my drift?”

 

“Yes, I think I do.”

 

Before this Kaiju business, humans had hardly ever seen ten years as a long time to continue living.

 

“Good. I plan on developing a business out of being at ground zero wherever these Kaiju stumble and fall, and I don’t want any of it to hurt. So if I get stepped on by a Kaiju or a Jaeger or whatever, I want to be able to get up and just dust myself off. Understood?”

 

She nods agreeably. “We have a deal.”

 

The man kisses a little too enthusiastically for her tastes, but it not the first time she’s been molested by a human. 

 

-

 

It’s another broken man. There’s been many of them lately, those who have lost everything but their lives, who would give anything to have something again. 

 

He stares at her for a long time, eyes red, and she waits with a patient smile, already knowing nothing is going to come from this.

 

“I…” He speaks, but his voice is a hash rasp which quickly fades into nothing. 

 

“I can bring back your wife. Your son will have a mother again, and you will have ten years, enough to see him grow. You can be a family again.” She spins the dream, lays out the vision of love and longing and broken things repaired again.

 

Tears swell and spill over, and there is anger, pain, regret, everything but enough despair. 

 

“You want to see him smile again, don’t you? See him laugh and hold your hand. You want her here too, to see her little boy grow into a man, to be with you again. You miss her, every day, every second, you miss her. You can change it all, everything.”

 

Yet something tethers him still, giving him enough hope that his soul is beyond her reach.

 

This time.

 

“I can bring her back.”

 

He shakes his head, crying, and walks away. 

 

-

 

 

The third fraternal triplet wants to be drift compatible with his identical twin brothers. 

 

She laughs, and offers him something much better.

 

Crimson Typhoon, the first and only Jaeger to ever be piloted by three Rangers. It will go on to successfully defend the world against the Kaiju until the last of their days. They will be heroes, revered and adored by everyone and by each other. They will save millions, and all of it together.

 

The kid actually believes he means less to his brothers than they do to each other. She does not bother to correct him. 

 

He will learn the truth, eventually, once he enters the drift. 

 

-

 

She seals the deal with a soft kiss on the boy’s cheek. He stands rock still, his head drooping, and she absently wonders if her hounds would even need wait the full ten years before this soul is ready for collection.

 

“Why not wish for your mother to come back to you?” It is what he truly desires, after all.

 

The boy starts, as though the thought had never even occurred to him until now. He finally begins to shake, starts to curl in on himself. He needs his father, she thinks to herself, wondering why he had thought it right to leave the boy on his own. 

 

She lets her fingers trail through the boy’s soft hair in a gesture of comfort. The children always learn to regret their decisions.

 

There is a murmur from the figure beneath her hand, but she doesn’t quite catch what is said.

 

“What was that, dear?”

 

“I don’t want anyone else to die,” the boy whispers softly. “I don’t want to watch any more people disappear.” 

 

She withdraws her fingers, thoughtful.

 

 _But what about those who will have to watch you die, little boy?_ She thinks. 

 

She says nothing, and moves on to find another.


End file.
